​Contemporary South African Art

(b. 1941, Cape Town, South Africa)

 

Neil Rodger was born in 1941 in Mowbray, Cape Town. The artist lived and worked in the Eastern Cape, where he thrived on the austerity and solitude of the region until he died in 2013. It seemed that this environment was conducive to the enigmatic silence so characteristic of his finest work.

 

None of the currently favored classifications apply to his work – rather, he belongs with those individual realists who have, throughout the modern era, defied categorisation.What he pursued is a universality, timelessness and harmony that can be found in all great art from whatever period or place. It is a measure of his conviction of the continuity of great art that he remained unmoved by revolutions, fashions or attitudes. Regular trips to Europe reinforced his cultural connections, which are to the Mediterranean by inclination and to the Netherlands by training.His work covers an unusually wide range of content and he worked in a variety of media in both painting and sculpture.

 

The vehicle for this content was also in a perpetual state of flux, so that ever-new perceptions were evinced, be it of the portrait, of the nude, of the landscape, of the animal painting. For this artist, the quest for refinement and distillation never ceased.I believe that pictures rarely benefit from commentary by the artist. In general I would say that whilst most good art has been extremely difficult and taxing in the making, it is a prerequisite of great art that this is not evident – that it appears effortless or even inevitable.

 

Profile

- 1968 -1974:  Member of the Grahamstown Group

- 1966 -1967:  Part-time lecturer in drawing and painting at the

                       Cape Technical College

-  1967:  Art Teacher, Wynberg Boys High School, Cape Town

-  1968 -1974:  Lecturer in Fine Art, Rhodes University

-  1974 -1981:  Lecturer, then a senior lecturer in fine art, Port

                        Elizabeth Technical College

-  1981: Full-time artist

-  1980: Member of the selection board of the King George VI Art

             Galllery, Port Elizabeth

-  1963-69: Travelled throughout Europe

-  1971:  Worked and traveled in United Kingdom, Netherlands and

               Spain

-  1986:  Worked and traveled in United States of America and

              England

- 1987: Texas, United States of America where he did some

             portraits

-  1988: United Kingdom and Switzerland painting portraits

 

Education

-  1961-63 & 1966:  Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town

-  1963-66: Rijks Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam

-  1981-82:  Rhodes University, Masters Degree in Fine Art, (cum

                    laude)

Awards

-  1963: Max Michaelis (prize for painting)

-  1965: Merit Award (painting) Rijksakademie

-  1982:Five Roses Young Artist of the Year, National Arts

            Festival, Grahamstown

 

Selected Solo Exhibits

He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad since 1968

- 1968:  Grahamstown Rhodes University (first of six solo exhibitions)

-  1973:  Grahamstown Johan Carinus Art CentrePort Elizabeth P.E. Technikon

-  1975:  Bloemfontein Gallery 82 Kimberley William Humphreys

             Collection

-  1976:  Cape Town Atlantic Gallery

-  1982:  Grahamstown Settlers Monument Arts Festival

-  1982:  Johannesburg Everard Read Gallery

-  1989:  Johannesburg Everard Read Gallery

-  2000:  Johannesburg, Everard Read GalleryPermanent

              Exhibition at Everard Read Galleries, Johannesburg and

              Cape Town

 

Collections

Throughout South Africa, USA, UK, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Portugal, Monte Carlo, Hong Kong, Namibia and Australia.REPRESENTEDGeorge Municipal CollectionNelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Gallery, Port ElizabethSA National Gallery, Cape TownUniversity of PretoriaUniversity of Cape TownOpera House, Port ElizabethWilliam Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley

 

RefL  http://everard-read-capetown.co.za/artist/NEIL_RODGER/biography/